


the last love song of the lonely left behind

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Other, non-sburb AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-04
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 13:19:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."</em>
</p><p> </p><p>a story about surviving.</p><p>abandoned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

4:13 AM, May 27th. it is a cold morning, sky blue as veins between fat white clouds. it will be warmer later, when the sun fries the bowl of heaven clear. nothing is upright beneath it but rolling hills, wildgrass, and telephone poles, wires dotted with birds, indigo smears of shadow on the bleached-out ground. pale old asphalt. the occasional rattling car.

in an hour and a half Jake English will stumble out of the pull-out bed in Winston Vance's living room, where he has been living for the past four months. his battered alarm clock has an audio jack; he will be startled completely awake by the noise that erupts from the buds still-half nestled in the curled cartilage of his ears, halting his own curse mid-exhortation and scrubbing the grit from his eyes.

by 6:03 AM, he will have dressed, shaved, and brushed his teeth; by 6:15 he will have made his bed, folded it up, re-settled the couch, tied his boots, shrugged into his offensively orange work vest, and he will be locking the front door behind him, key dangling from a lanyard about his neck. he will think that it is certainly chilly today, by crickey. he will mouth those words to himself, sans audio.

he will proceed to shuffle his ass down to the end of the driveway, where Noah Bradley is just about to pull up in his white van; Mike, Jonathan, Eva, Rob, Chuck, and Bobby are already in it, because Jake English is the last stop of the carpool this week. Chuck will have coffee for him.

he will yawn, push his glasses up the bridge of his nose, get in, buckle his seatbelt; and he will leave to join the telephone poles.

Dirk Strider, coincidentally, will be asleep until 11:18 AM.

which is about the same time Jake English will be eating lunch.

he will be covered with smears of tar up to his elbows, sand in his hair, drenched in sweat, wolfing down two bacon omelettes and a small stack of toast, dirty as sin. 

his face and shoulders will be sunburnt; red, but not peeling yet. they serve breakfast at this diner until half past noon. the luxury of freshly prepared food will be a rare treat for everyone; they will have until 2:00 PM to eat, recaffeinate, and wash off some of the grit, because the pipe they are meant to be laying down will be stuck in heavy weekend traffic. Mike, Noah, Juan, Stewart, and Frank will be sitting at the counter elbowing each other and exchanging bits and pieces of gossip traded off truck drivers and traffic cops; they will rib Jake occasionally, as is their wont, but Jake doesn't ever mind it. he will laugh along. his teeth are very white.

at about the same time that Jake is unintentionally showing off his years of scrupulous dental hygeine, Dirk Strider will be picking himself up off of his kitchen table, where he fell asleep at 2:26 in the morning. for a minute he will not remember where he is, or what he is doing there, or that it is May 27th, or even May at all.

after a few shuddery missed steps his mind will whirr back into full speed alertness, and he will remember that he has nothing to do today - except he promised Roxy he would stop by the bar.

Jake English is twenty years old, and he has not met Dirk Strider yet.

but tonight, he will.


	2. Chapter 2

[[ cutting this for a complete rewrite.  my bad! ]]


End file.
